


Schrödinger’s Cat

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Maybe - Freeform, definitely out of character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:43:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9589301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: He nearly runs over a kid and has to jerk to a stop. Steve’s body might have flown off the motorcycle if his grip had been any bit looser, but he had held on until his knuckles were white and clenched his teeth so tight not even an expletive could slip past his lips.(Or, that story that doesn't really make sense.)





	1. Schrödinger's Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Afternoon naps give me weird dreams that make me feel weird. Also, I didn’t really edit this.

**Schrödinger’s Cat**

**Disclaimer:** I don’t own anything owned by Marvel!

 **Warning(s):** None, really, except maybe the general oddness. Just…before you read this, just know that it doesn’t make sense and I _know_ it doesn’t make sense. I don’t know. Sorry, in advance!

 

Steve is thundering down the barren streets like a storm, the rumbling of his motorcycle chasing after him in sharp snaps close behind. It’s one in the morning—or maybe it’s three. Maybe it’s two. Or four.

Time has been hard to tell ever since he woke up from a coma, and the fact that the road was eerily empty did nothing to help. It was like a dream: nothing existed but the immediate yellow reflections of crackling paint blurring into one line. Every now and then, he would pass a car in another lane, but it didn’t matter because, by the time he noticed the flaming red backlights of the vehicle, it would vanish. It didn’t exist anymore. Time didn’t exist. And Steve didn’t exist, too. Bucky didn’t exist. And Peggy. And Sharon. And Tony. And—

An angry honk shatters his reverie. The window of the truck Steve narrowly missed colliding into rolls down jerkily, and he has enough sense to get the basic notion of what gesture the man inside was giving him. “Watch it, punk!”

But Steve doesn’t hear it because he’s lost in the rush of the wind beating against his ears, and gravity pulls down the voice to bury it underground, along with whatever else the man in the truck was yelling. Soon, the voice didn’t exist, and the truck didn’t either. There were only the immediate colors the light of his motorcycle illuminated before tearing past it.

The phone in his back pocket might have been vibrating, but it might also have just been the revving of his motorcycle. Not that it mattered: he wouldn’t have checked either way. He contemplates tossing the damn thing, but after narrowly brushing past another car that leaves his right arm tingling from the precarious contact, he decides against it. Another angry honk. Another angry gesture. But it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t exist.

Steve continues racing down the highway with an odd determination to get away from something he couldn’t see. Maybe it was the city. Maybe it was himself.

 

At some point, he realizes he had no idea where he is. He had taken turns off the highway just to return to the highway, just to take another turn. The steel railings were gone, replaced with flat dry land. The grass might as well have been pink or red: there’s no light, so Steve wouldn’t have been able to tell.

He nearly runs over a kid and has to jerk to a stop. Steve’s body might have flown off the motorcycle if his grip had been any bit looser, but he had held on until his knuckles were white and clenched his teeth so tight not even an expletive could slip past his lips.

“Hey, hey,” the kid’s standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms up and down like a demented chicken. His hair is sort of flopping around as he hops from foot to foot, and Steve thinks for a minute that Buck might have looked like that growing up while Steve was busy lying brain dead in a colorless hospital bed. Then he realizes he doesn’t even know what color the kid’s hair is because it’s so dark and he forgets about Buck and what might have been.

The kid is small, upon closer inspection. Buck was a bit—a lot—more strong-boned. Buck had stronger jaws, unlike the kid’s soft babyish features, and he had a sharp look in his eyes. The kid was not Buck.

“Hey, where are you going, mister?” the kid asks, approaching Steve in a weird manner, like he’s afraid to get close even though he had been the one to stop him in the first place. He sort of circles around, giving a wide berth not wide enough to leave an impression of disinterest.

“Nowhere,” Steve finds himself replying. It’s hard to hear anything other than the echoes of the wind and the rumbling of the engine. The kid comes closer, close enough for Steve to touch. He doesn’t, of course, touch the guy, but he wonders with a distant apathy how many layers of clothing were tossed onto that lanky body that was so distinctly not Bucky’s.

“What are you doing out here? It’s dark, mister,” the boy continues speaking, and his eyes are wide and doe-like. He sucks on his bottom lip and rocks on his heels like he’s got somewhere to be. Like he’s rushing to get somewhere.

But Steve’s not rushing right now, and he’s not rushing for anyone any time soon. “I should ask the same thing to you. What’re you doing in the middle of the road? What if I hit you?” Because time doesn’t exist.

“You wouldn’t have. I can tell—I’m really good at telling these sorts of things, mister.” The kid’s hair is a lighter shade of brown than Bucky’s. “And I’m just walking on the road. I have nowhere else to be—I’m going nowhere, just like you.” The kid’s not Bucky.

“Why’d you stop me? I don’t even know you,” and as he says that, suddenly the engine sounds much louder and the wind seems to pick up even though there’s no breeze. “Or…do I know you? Have we met before?”

“Nope, we’ve never met. I’m Peter, by the way,” the brunet pauses for a bit, and he’s inching towards Steve like his body’s losing energy as he speaks each word. “Want to take me with you? D’you want some company?” And the kid’s already leaning against Steve, a warm entity against the chill of loneliness.

“My name’s Steve,” he says, and he knows he should have left a while ago but he’s still there, twisting his body around as Peter settles onto the motorcycle to wrap his thin arms around him. It’s warm and he should have left, but he says, “Sure,” and they’re ripping down the highway and they stop existing in the space they were in mere seconds ago.

 

They stop by a gas station and it takes a couple minutes to get Peter’s legs to start working again. Steve’s laughing his ass off while watching the kid wobble around, and he’s side-stepping and jumping out of the way as Peter attempts to chase him. The sun has yet to peek over the horizon, if a horizon ever existed, and the only light source amongst the empty highway is the dull red “Shell” that flickers on and off.

“ _Steve_ ,” Peter’s whining and Steve’s been chuckling for so long he can feel the burn of asphyxiation on his cheeks. His chest almost hurts, and he almost takes the time to wonder what it is. “I can’t feel my legs.”

“Walk it off,” he replies, settling down and leaning against the bike as the digital numbers count upwards. They’re silent for a while, but it’s a comfortable sort of silence, and Steve’s content just watching Peter kick at the concrete ground for his nerves to start working again.

“Hey,” brown eyes meet blue and there might have been a spark, but it doesn’t matter because the sun isn’t up and it’s so dark that nothing can be seen anyway. “Hey, do you want something to eat? I want a snack for the road.”

Steve turns his head to look at the deserted convenience store. The light within it looks so bright he almost wants to stay outdoors. The number starts blinking, the price of the gas blinks too, and he says, “Sure.”

Peter, somehow, is already skipping ahead of him, his ridiculous hair jumping around as he pulls open the glass door. Nobody’s outside anyway, so the motorcycle is left unattended, and Steve follows the lanky figure around as it runs up and down the aisles like a child.

“I can feel my legs again!” Peter’s voice is fluctuating as he runs around and it’s crazy and he shouldn’t be acting like this at one in the morning. Or three. Or five. But no one comes out the front door to chastise them and the bathroom door is left slightly ajar, so Steve leaves him be. He watches Peter pick up candy bars without even reading the labels, watches him pile chips onto his chest, and he wonders what the hell is going on.

“Come on, Steve,” Peter’s getting a slushy out of a machine that’s swirling a painfully artificial blue. “Pick some stuff out! I’ll pay. You want a slushy? Can’t wait until my tongue turns blue off this stuff.”

“Nah, I’m good,” he replies, but he pushes himself off the counter and goes to watch the large cup fill up with ‘Razz Blast’ slush. It looks too sweet and he doesn’t hesitate to voice his opinion with a quirked eyebrow.

“Your loss, Steve. I’m telling you: this is _the shit_ —hey, you want a smoke?” Peter’s looking over Steve’s shoulder and he’s already gone before Steve can answer. Steve follows close behind. “It’s been a while, but I might as well get some.”  
“You shouldn’t smoke,” the blond says, watching disapprovingly as the boy heaves his body over the counter and picks out three packs. “That stuff’ll kill you, Peter.”

“And the chips won’t?” Peter’s pockets are bulging with chips and candies and things that couldn’t possibly fit in a jacket pocket that somehow do. Now, there’s cigarettes and a lighter in them, too. Steve watches as the brunet rifles through his trouser pockets for cash, and two crumpled twenty-dollar bills are slapped onto the counter. “Anything can kill me, Steve. But nothing exists right now, so let’s forget about that stuff. Want a smoke?”

He should say no. “Sure,” he says, and they leave the store, Peter with a slushy Steve swears he’s not going to finish. The boy tosses him a green plastic lighter and a pack of smokes, which Steve accidentally tears open and drops on the ground. The kid has the gall to laugh and Steve hooks that ridiculous head of hair under his arms and noogies the shit out of it.

“Ow, ow, I’m sorry!” But Peter’s laughing too hard to _really_ be apologetic about it and Steve’s blushing too hard to care. “Gimme a smoke, will you?” And when he speaks, Steve can see the blue tongue peeking out. He takes the time to pick up the fallen cigarettes and lights one up for himself. Peter appears out of nowhere, from beside him to in front of him within seconds, plucks a cancer stick from within the pack in Steve’s hand, and leans in to steal some of Steve’s fire.

Peter’s cigarette catches and he moves away as the blond watches the fluttering of brown eyelashes. Steve fights to urge to smack the thing out of the kid’s mouth and lock lips like it’s a bad teenage romance film. He wonders, though, what it might have tasted like if he did.

Peter blows a cloud of smoke and it smells like sugared nicotine somehow. Must have been the blue slushy the kid rotated with, puffing and sipping and watching the darkness. Steve puffs and looks up at the sky, but it’s too dark and there are no stars out tonight.

“What the hell am I doing,” he wonders aloud, his eyes never straying from the sky, even though there’s nothing to see. “What the hell are we doing, Pete.”

There’s no answer, and Steve turns his head to the side. Peter’s not there and his heart leaps to his throat. “Peter?” He’s walking around now, turning his head side to side, and his voice is progressively getting louder and it’s echoing just like the wind in his ears. He slams open the convenience door’s glass door, not even the slightest apologetic about it, and peers inside: empty. “Peter?” He goes back out and looks up at the sky and there are stars. “Peter, cut it out.”

Then there’s a hand on his shoulder. It’s just a tap, but Steve whips around and—yes, everything is alright now. It’s Peter, with his big confused eyes and a half-burnt cigarette butt in his lips.

“You okay?” the kid asks, and Steve’s hand suddenly has a mind of its own as it seeks out Peter’s warmth. It finds itself on Peter’s cheek, and Steve calms down as he strokes the soft skin. It’s real and Steve wants to kiss him. He peers up at the sky behind Peter, but the stars are all hiding again. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Steve says it too quickly, but what does it matter? Peter’s real. “Wanna kiss me?”  
“What the hell kind of question is that?” Peter guffaws, but he drops his cigarette butt on the ground and grinds his heel into it. “But yeah. Yeah, I wanna kiss you—have you ever seen yourself in a mirror?”

Steve laughs and he keeps laughing even when Peter leans up on the tips of his toes to kiss him. They start necking like teenagers in front of the store, but neither of them really cares because Steve’s hands cup Peter’s ass like it belongs there and Peter’s hands are splayed open on Steve’s broad chest. When they break apart, Steve notices Peter’s hair is even more ridiculous and his lips are bruised a pretty red. Their pupils are probably dilated as hell, and they’re breathing like they ran a damn marathon, but then Peter starts laughing and peppering kisses all over Steve’s chest.

Steve’s heart hurts, but he starts laughing, too. Before he can wonder why, Peter is already walking towards the motorcycle with his candy-filled pockets. “Come on, Steve,” he calls, tapping the bike like he owns it. He looks good on it, though, with his legs straddling the hunk of metal and his face dazzling with a smile. Steve wants to take a picture, so he slips out his phone and snaps one without looking at the screen. The light from the store should be enough to illuminate the image anyway.

He gets on the motorcycle and Peter’s familiar warmth envelopes his back.

“Where are we going?” Peter’s voice vibrates against the muscles on his back and he fights a shudder.

“Dunno. Wanna go to a motel or something?” Steve asks, and he starts the engine because he’s afraid of the answer. Everything is so dark and he wishes Peter could control the bike just so he knows the kid won’t disappear.

“You tired already, old man?” Peter whispers jokingly, but it’s loud enough to hear and Steve’s nerves aren’t so shocked he can’t feel the delicate patterns being carved onto his back. He wonders if Peter’s heart is beating as fast as his own. “Are you propositioning me? I won’t know unless you tell me. Unless you’re sure.”

They’re rolling out of the gas station slowly, as if reluctant to leave, when Steve says, “Wanna sleep with me?”

And Peter’s laughing so hard he might as well be crying, and then they’re leaving the gas station and stop existing there, too. There are no other cars on the highway and Steve still has no idea where they are, but they’re going to a motel he doesn’t know exists and he’s excited as hell. He’s happy and he’s afraid of it.

 

They roll into a motel, somehow, that they come across. It’s shady as hell, with a glowing sign that reads nothing but “MOTEL”, but Steve doesn’t really care. He counts it as a win and he’s glad. When he parks, Peter’s legs are about as useless as the first time, so he carries the kid like a damsel in distress that weighs nothing. Nobody was there anyway and Peter seemed content pressing kisses into his neck.

The front desk is empty, barren like the convenience store back at the station, so Peter reaches over the wooden desk and snags a key, making sure to leave another ball of cash in its place.

“Hurry, hurry, room two-one-four,” Peter’s pressing open-mouth kisses as if to prove a point and Steve practically barrels into the room. They barely shut the door before Peter squirms out of the blond’s arms and wriggles out of his clothing. It looks hilarious and Steve’s giddy like he’s back in high school, but he’s taking his clothes off just as eagerly and he only managed to peel his shirt off before Peter pushes him onto the bed.

The springs squeal when he crashes onto it, and Steve is shocked at the magnitude of how little he cares because Peter’s on top of him, straddling him like he straddled the bike and he looks damn good. They’re grinding on each other, sending sparks of electricity throughout their bodies from one end to another, and Steve suddenly wonders.

“Do you have lube?” and from the coy grin on Peter’s face, he assumes it’s an affirmative. “You carry lube around with you?”

“You complaining?” Peter shimmies out of his trousers and Steve takes the time to admire. There’s a bottle of lube that’s tossed in his direction, which he catches thoughtlessly and pops open.

“Nope,” he replies as he watches from beneath hooded eyelids. Peter crawls on top of him and he’s working open Steve’s jeans without looking and he’s kissing a trail down his abdomen to his happy trail. “Holy shit.”

“You haven’t seen shit yet,” and somewhere along the way they’re both buck-naked. Peter had worked himself open with slick fingers and now he’s bouncing on Steve’s dick like he belongs there. His mouth is agape and Steve can’t help but stare in amazement as he watches himself disappear inside of the brunet. The noises might as well have been milked from a professional porn star—not that Steve would know because he hadn’t watched porn in a while, but he assumes it’s loud and dirty and messy as hell.

He’s pretty sure he’s bruised Peter’s upper thighs from the strength of his grip, but it completely slips his mind because he feels good and Peter looks really fucking incredible. His back is arched and his neck is long and exposed and, yeah, it’s great.

Steve groans, low and rumbling in his stomach, and Peter looks down at him from his high perch, preening like he’s won a prize, and Steve’s heart hurt again.

And then he’s coming, so he thumbs at Peter’s hard-on because he wants to see the kid lose it. He’s not the least bit apologetic when Peter screams, gripping Steve’s wrists as if to stop him, and collapses on top of him.

 

Steve opens his eyes. The sky is still black and Peter is still here. He never wants to leave.

Briefly, he wonders what time it is. Maybe it’s one. Maybe it’s three. Nothing exists outside of the motel room the duo is shacked up in, and Steve’s alright with that. He closes his eyes and hugs Peter a little tighter. 

* * *

 

He opens his eyes. The room is white and he sees the blurs of worried faces so close to his own. He recognizes none of them—or rather, maybe he recognizes a few, but none are the one he’s looking for. Maybe it’s pity he sees in their eyes. Maybe it’s regret.

“Peter?” Steve’s voice sounds terrible and— _no, what the hell is going on_.

“Stevie?”

“Peter?” He closes his eyes and everything is dark. There are no stars and no light and he expects Peter to be waiting for him amongst the blackness. 

* * *

 

Steve opens his eyes. He’s back in the motel room. Peter’s asleep, tucked in the crook of his neck, and a flood of relief floods his senses so intensely, he just hugs the kid. He just turns, fuck if he wakes him up, and snuggles into the brunet. He smells what they did last night—or a couple hours ago, it doesn’t matter because time doesn’t exist, nothing exists but them—and he’s happy. Peter grumbles.

“The hell— _Steve_ ,” he whines, attempting to turn away. Steve drags him closer. “Sleep.”

“I will,” he promises, but he’s really happy and he’s grinning as he pecks kisses. “I’m just really happy.” He just keeps kissing because he can feel it and, yeah, this is _real_ because he can feel the skin against his lips. He can taste the warmth. And if he can do all these things, then it must be real. Peter must be real.

There’s silence for a while, and then Steve hears the bed sheets rustle as Peter turns back over. “You dork. I’m really happy, too. Dork.” Steve feels the press of lips against his forehead and he hugs his face closer to Peter’s stomach. Peter snuggles closer into Steve, but Steve can’t fall asleep yet because he’s happy but he’s afraid.

“I know you’re awake. Or, trying to stay awake or whatever,” Peter comments, and Steve doesn’t want to hear it. “Go to sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.” Peter chuckles and it sounds like a solid promise, so he closes his eyes again.

* * *

 

He opens his eyes. It’s white, and at this point, Steve knows what that means.

“Peter?” he calls out anyway—he can’t help himself. There’s a figure at his bedside, and it has brown hair. “Peter?”

The figure lifts its head, and long strands of hair falls over an exhausted face. It’s handsome. It’s Bucky. Steve feels like crying.

“Stevie?” Bucky’s voice sounds exhausted and Steve is selfish enough to want someone else when his friend is suffering. “Stevie, are you okay? Who’s Peter?”

He closes his eyes and tries his best to drift away.

* * *

 Steve opens his eyes. Peter is watching him with an awed sort of expression, and he must be shocked with the fact that Steve woke up at all because he jerks back, at first, before leaning in with a wicked grin. He kisses Steve and Steve returns it hungrily.

“Is this real?” he’s asking in between kisses, and he doesn’t want to hear the answer but he’s asking anyway. He must be a masochist or something. “Are you real?”

Peter’s laughter sounds so boyish and youthful, so alive, “Are _you_ real, Steve? If you’re real, if this place is real, then I’m real, too.”

“Nevermind,” the kiss is turning filthy and the sucking sounds would have made him blush if he wasn’t so frantic. “Nevermind, I don’t care. I love you—I don’t care.”

“I love you, too,” Peter’s giggling and he sounds so damn happy that he can’t just _not_ be real, right? Steve’s imagination was never _this_ good. It must be real. “A lot.”

Steve doesn’t want to leave. He wants the darkness to last forever and he never wants to see another star. He wants to drive on the damn motorcycle and go to places with Peter latched onto his back like a koala. He wants to fuck Peter. He wants to love him, too.

“What do you want to do?” he asks, his head his nestled on top of Peter’s beating chest. It thrums a steady beat.

“Did you sleep at all? Are you tired? You looked tired before,” the boy replies, carding his fingers through the man’s short hair. “You should sleep.”

“What are you, my dad? You’re just a kid,” Steve kisses Peter’s stomach. “I’m okay. What do you want to do?”

“What time is it?” Peter asks instead. “And how do you know I’m a kid? Maybe I’m older than you. Maybe I’m, like, forty or something.”

“Then you’d have the most severe case of baby face I’ve ever known in all the twenty-so years I’ve been alive. You’re probably just a teenager. Where do you want to go now?”

Peter looks down at him and quirks his lips, “Nowhere. I wish we could just travel like this. Forever.”

“We could do that. Who says we can’t do that?” Steve sits up, and his heart is fluttering frantically against his chest. He’s afraid of what’s coming, but he can’t turn back time because it doesn’t exist. Nothing exists. He’s not going forward, he’s not going backward. “We can do it, Pete.”

Peter just smiles up at him, wraps his long arms around Steve’s neck, and pulls the blond down for a kiss. “Alright, then. Let’s go get breakfast. I need coffee to get my system up and running.” When Steve steals a glance outside the window, past the crumby curtains barely clinging onto the window, the sky is black and it’s obviously not morning.

But it feels like morning and Peter wants coffee, so it must be.

“Wanna shower before we go? We should buy clothes, too,” Steve looks down on the bed again, expecting Peter to be there. He’s not there. It’s empty and there are no creases that indicate someone had lain there at all. The familiar fear crawls up his throat and he wants to cry.

“Peter?” he checks beneath the bed and twists his neck. Nothing. He’s about to leave the room, naked as the day he was born, but the bathroom door creaks open and Peter’s head peeks out. “ _Peter_.”

“Shower sex?” Peter asks, and he has this adorably devious grin on his lips that Steve just wants to kiss off. “And then breakfast, and then shopping—hey, is my sex hair that awful? I can’t help it. It’s genetic.”

“Shower sex,” he replies. “Turn on the water; I like it warm.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n!”

 

Afterwards, they leave the room behind. The whole place had a weird atmosphere to it anyway, with its shitty curtains and the fact that the shower water took a while to get warm. Even if the television only played static and the beds were too springy to get any actual sleep, it was okay. The stains on the peeling wallpaper only bothered him a little and nobody has to know he accidentally broke the bathroom doorknob, right? They were gone, the only sign of their existence the disappearing rumble of Steve’s sleek motorcycle.

Peter is a constant warmth latched onto his back and that was what he focused on. Every shift of the boy’s muscle, every breath that left his mouth, Steve was attuned to. Soon, they chance across an IHOP that glows blue and white, and Peter stumbles off the bike in excitement for coffee and pancakes. Steve can’t help but grin helplessly as Peter tries to discreetly kick the pins-and-needles out of his legs.

There’s no one but a server in IHOP, but the kitchen is somehow bustling with life and the clacking of dishware is a comfort. Steve and Peter take a seat away from the windows and Peter orders a coffee and chocolate chip pancakes. Steve asks for the same.

“You need to order something healthy,” he lightly chastises, watching Peter shift in his chair uncomfortably. He would take the time to look slightly guilty if his pride was any smaller, but he can’t keep the thoughts out that say, ‘I caused that.’

“You’re ordering the same thing as me, numbnutt,” Peter points out before shifting in his chair with a grimace. “Also, my ass hurts so I should be able to treat myself—this is my cheat day.”

“You work out?” Steve asks, allowing his eyes to wander. Peter looks so thin, but the blond honestly couldn’t imagine it any other way. “Really?”

“Okay, well every day is my cheat day, but today _especially_ ,” the boy grins, winking outrageously in a way that resembles more an aneurism than a wink. “I had a dick up my butt yesterday, remember?”

“But you liked it,” Steve’s grinning so much his face hurts because _hell yeah_ he remembers. He wants it ingrained in his memory forever. He wants mornings with Peter that are like that. He wants afternoons and dinners. He wants time.

But time doesn’t exist and nothing exists outside the IHOP they’re in.

“Yeah, I liked it. It felt good,” Peter says it like it’s a confession, until he looks up and smiles. “So, thank you.”

Steve laughs because it’s weird being thanked for something like sex, “Thank you, too.”

Suddenly, plates appear in front of them and Peter’s practically digging himself a hole in his pancakes. The chocolate chips are one thing, but the fact that there’s an enormous dollop of whipped cream smeared on the center of it is another. It’s diabetes in the form of a flat pancake, and even the small crimson cherry atop it can convince him it’s not. No amount of fruit can make this remotely healthy, and the man wonders if Peter’ll even be able to finish before starting on his own.

“Oh my _God_ , this was such a good idea,” the boy groans, tapping his stomach as if he’s eaten a feast despite the fact that an entire pancake was lying on his plate untouched. “This was great.”

“You finished?” Steve takes a sip of his coffee that’s still, somehow, warm and steaming. It was a little too bitter, but the sweetness of the pancakes made up for it.

“Yeah, if I eat anymore, I’ll crush the bike with my weight,” Peter sort of half-stands to look out the window. “Hmm…let me go to the bathroom before we hit the road.” Another crumpled ball of money appears and it’s placed atop the check Steve didn’t know was on the table. He sort of feels bad for making Peter pay for everything, but he didn’t have money.

“Thanks for paying for everything,” he says, albeit belatedly. Peter’s leaving the table and he has a bright smile on his face. “Wait, let me come with you.”

“Oh, are we having a quickie in the bathroom?” the boy is pulling him by the hand and they’re weaving past the empty seats like fish in the sea. Steve doesn’t bother to look at anything but Peter, and next thing he knows they’re inside one of those stalls for the disabled and Peter’s on his knees like he’s worshipping.

The kid fishes out Steve’s dick with a quick flick of the wrist and suddenly everything is hot and wet and honest-to-God pretty damn lewd. Sucking sounds should not be this loud. Also, Peter shouldn’t be this good at working his tongue. But he is, and Steve never stood a chance.

He tugs on that ridiculous hair to pull him off, but the plan sort of backfires because he ends up shooting come all over the youth’s face. Steve’s own face is blushed red and he’s stuttering apologies while Peter’s still on his knees, laughing and licking at anything dripping over his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Steve looks down at Peter, who’s sort of shifting awkwardly in his pants. “Want some help?”

“I came in my pants,” Peter says it with a sort of amazement, his eyes are wide and unblinking. “I need new pants.”

And then they’re leaving IHOPS behind, they’ve stopped existing in IHOPS, and Peter’s walking a little awkwardly and it’s damn hilarious because Steve knows why.

“I can’t believe it! I barely touched myself and now my dick’s wet. It’s, like, running down my thighs,” the engine of the motorcycle is a quiet rumble behind Peter’s voice. “ _Ew_.”

“I thought you cleaned it up.”

“I couldn’t, or else I would’ve gotten hard again.”

Crazy kid. He’s laughing, though, when that familiar warm heat envelopes his back and they’re ripping down the highway again. Everything is dark and he can barely see the road even with the headlights of his bike. There are no stars in the sky, but Peter’s latched onto his back, pressing kisses and grinding on him, and it’s alright. He feels Peter’s hips stutter, feels Peter’s arms tighten around him, feels Peter’s hot breath brush against his ear, and he has to focus on the road or else they’re going to veer off and die.

“Did you just get off?” he’s yelling over the wind, not daring to take his eyes away from the road. “Did you just come?”

“Yeah. It felt so good, Steve. Wanna fuck me at the department store? I have lube and I’m really horny.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“Wet and ready for action, Cap’n.”

“Shut the hell up or I’m gonna crash the goddamn bike.”

Peter’s laughter makes his own chest bubble with elation and he’s tearing down the streets to get to some department store he doesn’t know exists because he’s harder than diamonds and, yeah, Peter must be getting off on the vibrations of the motorcycle because _he’s_ hard, too. Again. The boy doesn’t hesitate to remind him.

“Fuck, fuck, hurry up, Steve. I want your cock in my ass. I want it in me.” And the kid’s hands are snaking around to grind the heels of his palms over Steve’s hard-on. Steve nearly loses control and clenches his fists so tight on the handlebars because he doesn’t really know what else to do. The adrenaline and pleasure shooting through his body is like a drug. His hip jerks against the hand.

There are no stars and it’s too dark to see anything and nothing existed until a truck he hadn’t seen suddenly swerves from the opposite lane to his own. Peter screams and they collide. Inertia takes place, everything goes flying, and Steve watches as it falls apart.

* * *

 He opens his eyes. He jerks up and hisses at the sharp pain assaulting the side of his head. Nobody is in the bright room, and he’s glad for that because he wouldn’t have been able to see anyway: it’s too white. His eyes hurt, the kind of sting that makes you wonder if your eyelashes are falling off, and he rubs his palms into them in order to get rid of the fuzziness.

He looks around. Light is streaming in from the window, like water overflowing from a cup too small, and it illuminates a thin line of pale white tiled hospital tiles. The curtains are brightly lit from the sun that set it ablaze from the other side. There’s a clock on the wall that reads “3:15” and it takes a moment to process because he had sworn it was one in the morning the last time he was awake.

The door opens: Bucky. He looks better.

“Buck,” he says, and he would smile if his face didn’t hurt so much. “Turn off the light, would you? It’s too bright in here.”

The lights flick off, but it’s not too dark because the curtains are slightly open. Bucky comes over, grinning, and takes a seat in the wooden seat beside Steve. It looks uncomfortable, but Bucky just shakes his head.

“How’re you feeling, Steve? The others are all outside; the doctors didn’t want us overwhelming you the moment you woke up.”

“About as good as anyone can feel at a hospital. What happened?”

“You skimmed a car while you were on the highway. Lost control of your bike, I guess. Your right arm was fucked up for a while, but the cast should fix it up in a couple days.”

Oh. “Thanks for being here. The others can come in, too, if they want. I’m alright now,” Steve can’t shake the feeling he’s missing something, but he’ll have to deal with the others before he gets sucked into anything else. The least he can do, as a friend, is appreciate all the efforts the others have gone through. And he is—thankful, that is—but he feels a bit off and it bothers him because he doesn’t know why.

Bucky leaves and returns with a row of all Steve’s friends. They’re smiling, even though their eyes are weary with apprehension.

“Sorry, guys, for worrying you. Thanks for coming,” he says, quirking his lip. “An accident, huh?” And they stay there for a while, talking about something Steve’s not all that invested in. But he nods and smiles and huffs a laugh every now and then because they took the time to visit him.

“We’ll go now,” it might have been Tony who says it. Might have been Natasha. “Rest up, dude. We’ll come back when you’re feeling better and party. I don’t know about you, but I’m just damn happy you’re alive. We should celebrate.” Maybe it’s Clint. “But, what even happened? All I remember is getting a call from Buck at one in the morning that you got in an accident.”

“Was it one in the morning?” Steve asks. He looks outside, where it’s still bright, and then back up at the clock. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” It should be dark outside. There should be no stars.

His friends leave and Steve falls asleep. 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up to a black sky with no stars and a truck is on fire. He can’t move his body, but he has enough strength to move his neck. He looks at Peter, who’s laying a long ways away from him. Or maybe he’s close by and it just feels far away because space doesn’t exist.

The truck is on fire and the metal is screeching like demons clawing their way out of Hell. Peter isn’t moving—and he’s not dead, not until Steve checks. Steve is watching the flaming tongues lick Heaven like it can reach it, but he knows it can’t because the light from the flame isn’t even strong enough to illuminate the stratosphere.

Peter’s skin glows from the warm orangish-red hue borne from the fire and Steve closes his eyes. 

* * *

He opens his eyes.

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”


	2. The Copenhagen Interpretation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE ENDING. (Or is it?) I mean, what did you expect from something called “Schrödinger’s Cat” and “The Copenhagen Interpretation”, right?  
> Anyway, the ending for chapter one was a lot of playfulness on the “Steve” and the “he” paragraphs. Like, when the paragraph began with “Steve”, it was the alternate reality; when it was “he”, it was reality. It didn’t really work out, though, so I’m sorry for that. Don’t worry, I didn’t do it this time: just in chapter one. (Or, I mean, I might’ve done it subconsciously, but it doesn’t mean anything this time.)  
> I unintentionally confused myself while writing this, which is why it's significantly shorter and contains no "action" (cough cough).

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

He turns his head, blue meets blue, and he realizes it’s not _his_ Peter, but another Peter. Of course it’s not _his_ Peter, because _his_ Peter is in the place where there are no stars and a truck is on fire. _His_ Peter isn’t a dirty-blond medical intern wearing a nice white nametag with silver borders. This Peter, Peter Murphy, is waiting in a suspended state of curiosity and impatience because—oh, yes, Steve had called his name—well, not Peter Murphy’s name because he’s not _his_ Peter and he had called _his_ Peter, not Peter Murphy, but the two inherently different individuals happen to have _a_ name that’s spelt the same way, pronounced the same way—

“Oh, nevermind. Sorry about...sorry. I thought you were someone else,” he ends lamely, and he would grin abashedly if the gaping hole in his chest was any smaller. Murphy just nods, fixes up Steve’s pillows even though there’s nothing really much to fix, and leaves. When the door clicks shut, Steve takes inventory.

The sun is still streaming through the window, the lights are still off, and the clock hands aren’t ticking. It’s 3:15 and he closes his eyes because there’s nothing else to do, crippled in a hospital bed.

* * *

Steve has trouble opening his eyes once he’d closed them, but he musters the strength to peel back his eyelids and blearily look around. The sky is black and he is hit with such a huge tidal wave of relief, it takes his breath away. So, he lies there on his back, staring up at the deep black and listening to the muffled crackling of the fire, telling himself he should probably get up and check if Peter’s alright. A part of him doesn’t want to, though—not because he doesn’t want Peter to be fine, but because if he doesn’t know, then Peter will perpetually be in a state of life and death. It will only be when he checks, when he gets up and places his fingers to the boy’s pulse, will Peter live or die.

So Steve doesn’t check, at least, not at that moment. He stares up at the darkness and is lulled into a willingly-false sense of security because nothing is wrong until he checks. There are no stars as long as he keeps his eyes closed and there is no fire, only a strange crackling sound. Here, nothing exists and Steve is glad because he doesn’t want to know some things and as long as he doesn’t know them, they too are in a state of suspension.

Ignorance is bliss, but Steve doesn’t know that even if he knows what those words sound like because he’s ignorant, and he’s so ignorant he doesn’t know he’s ignorant; therefore, he is not ignorant because he is.

But, inherently, Steve is not ignorant because it’s not in his character to be ignorant. He knows there is a fire, he knows he should check on Peter, so he is not ignorant. Either way, ignorant or not, Steve does not have the luxury of ignorance, knowing what he does, for he cannot un-know what he knows, for he is not ignorant.

“Fuck,” he groans, pushing himself off the dirt on his elbows to a seated position. His muscles ache, like they had been torn and shoddily mashed together by an infant, and the side of his head pounds to the beat of his heart. “Peter?”

He turns and crawls towards the fire. It hurts his eyes, with its painful heat and warm luminescence, and he can’t stand up lest vertigo slams into him. There are two bodies, one of which is face-down with a puddle of sticky _something_ —and it’s not blood, because Steve hasn’t checked yet—pooling beside it. The other is on their side and Steve doesn’t know if the slight shudder he sees is a projection of his own wishes or reality.

Or rather, as real as this place can be.

The man is torn between which figure he should approach first, and if he even wants to see. But his muscles move on their own and he’s crawling towards the one that’s closer to him: the one on its side. His jeans scrape against the highway concrete and, too soon, he’s bent over an unconscious figure he can’t bring himself to look at.

The fire is roaring, but he clenches his teeth and asks, “Peter?” He turns it over and wants to vomit as he recognizes the fluffy hair. He’s so relieved he might have started crying. He starts crying even harder once Peter stirs.

“Hey,” Peter looks up at him and his doe eyes are shining brightly from a flame not from the truck. He turns to the side and sees the truck bleeding gasoline, the melting steel and rubber, and says, “Looks like Hollywood was wrong: trucks on fire don’t blow up. Well, of course they don’t, but I’ve never seen a truck on fire so I only had the textbook to tell me what’s what—hey, Steve, why’re you crying? Not happy to see me?”

“God, do you never shut up?” Steve grumbles wetly, but he’s grinning. “Should’ve left you to die, you stupid idiot.”

“Hey, I resent that. Also, that’s redundant so who’s the real stupid idiot?” Peter sits up with a drawn-out groan. The side of his head must hurt the same way Steve’s does. “Holy shit, is that…is that a dead person?”

“Dead…oh. Yeah, I think. I mean, that’s a lot of blood,” Steve doesn’t care as much as he should. He should probably go check. “Should we go check?” He doesn’t want to.

Peter hesitates, looking from the truck’s shattered window to the body, and decides, “We should, but I don’t want to. There’s no way he survived a personalized flight out of laminated safety glass, anyway.”

“Shit, we’re really terrible people,” Steve marvels after a moment of shared silence. He’s oddly comfortable, even with the knowledge of a corpse lying dead meters away from him. He feels like he’s astral projecting. “Normal people would be calling the cops right now. Or at least checking the corpse.”

Peter hums in response, staring at some place over Steve’s shoulder. “Yeah, maybe. But nothing exists right now, so it’s alright. Hey, want some crisps or something? My pockets are stuffed.”

“In front of a burning truck?” He takes a breath, “Need I remind you of the _dead body_ right next to us? It’s just…lying there. God, this is so screwed up.”

“Well, how do you know it’s dead if you’ve never checked?” Peter stares at the warm circle of radiance surrounding the blazing fire. “Maybe he’s alive.”

“You just said he was dead!” the man sounds exasperated, but he’s not really. He takes a seat beside Peter, close enough that their shoulders are bumping against each other. “You said there’s no way anyone could survive a fall like that.”

“I did,” Peter turns to stare him in the eye. “But, there’s always a point-zero-one percent chance that he survived, you know? You never know until you check. Do you? Want to check, I mean.”

Steve shakes his head and lets the fire warm his body. As his muscles relax, he begins to steal crisps from the Lays in Peter’s hand. At some point, theft evolves into handholding, which evolves into necking. Steve feels like he’s in high school all over again, but he can’t really remember much from high school, so it sort of defeats the purpose.

“Are we still going to the department store?” Peter kisses Steve in between his words. “Notwithstanding that epic accident we just survived, I’ve still got dry come on my legs.”

“Jesus, Pete. Can’t you see we’re having a moment here?” but he laughs and plants a wet kiss right over the youth’s lips, which open to his gentle probing so that their tongues can clash. Peter’s practically straddling his lap and Steve doesn’t know how far things would have gone if the brunet didn’t snap his head back in the middle of grinding his hips down to speak.

“We have to— _fuck_ , Steve—to get to the department store or I’m going to explode,” Peter sticks his hand down the tent in his jeans to readjust everything. It stays there longer than it probably should and Steve can hazard a guess what the kid’s doing.

“Keep that up and we’re never going to the store,” he says. He’s hard, too, but he can’t touch himself or it’ll lessen the impact of his words. “This is so fucked up. We’re so fucked up, Pete. There’s a dead body. _God_ , what’s going on?”

Their situation is sinking in slowly, like a fruit fly submerging in honey: the more it moves and struggles, the more it sinks. The fire has yet to weaken as it hungrily licks the air, but there are no police cars. There’s a corpse, there’s blood, but Peter doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.

“Nothing exists right now,” Peter replies, simply. As if it’s obvious, and as if it’s the answer to his questions when, really, it doesn’t answer anything. It just brings up more questions. “Everything’s alright.”

“There is a _dead_ person! That’s a person with a family and, hell, maybe kids. Maybe he’s got a lover back at home, but he’s not going back!” Steve’s starting to hyperventilate a little bit. He should be doing something, but Peter grounds him and he’s secretly glad because he doesn’t want to do anything. He doesn’t want to know, and if he doesn’t know, then how can anything go wrong? But he continues speaking, as if he believes it, “How can everything be alright? How can nothing exist?”

“Christ, Steve. You weren’t bothered by any of this before,” Peter sighs, runs a hand through his ridiculous hair, and relaxes down on Steve’s lap. “Listen, Steve. That dead person doesn’t _have_ a family. Because of two reasons: one, because you don’t know, therefore it doesn’t exist, and two, because nothing exists.”

“But _how_ ,” the man’s exasperated because, goddammit, he’s torn between some scientific anomaly and the fact that he’s still a little hard. And Peter’s sitting on him, slowly undulating because _he’s_ hard, too. “You said—before, when I asked you if you were real—that you were real if I was real. I’m real. But you’re saying that nothing exists. How? You don’t exist? What the fuck’s going on?”

“Okay. Okay,” the boy just looks at him with this empty expression and Steve is suddenly seized with a fear that if he blinks, Peter will disappear. Because nothing exists, and if nothing exists, Peter doesn’t exist. “Nothing exists, Steve. Not until you pick one, y’know, one place—wherever that place it. All I know is that you disappear sometimes. And until you pick, nothing exists. Doesn’t mean it’s not real, because _I’m_ real, but I don’t _exist_ unless you pick. Y’know what I mean?”

“Jesus fuck.”

“Yeah, it’s some crazy stuff.”

“Is this a dream? Because that other place I go to, I’ve got friends I know. There’s light and windows and I can see everything. It looks more real than this place. Is that place real? And where _are_ we?”

“No, because dreams aren’t real. That place, wherever ‘that place’ is, isn’t real either. Not when you’re here. Like I said, Steve, you have to _choose_. Open the box, y’know? Check if the cat inside is dead or not. Whichever one you pick, whichever place you decide to go to at the end of the day, the other place stops existing. Until you pick, both are in a state of existing and not existing at the same time. Can we go to the store now?”

“ _Where_ is the store? All we do is follow some damn highway until we come across it! Where the fuck are we, Peter? Stop avoiding the question, damn you!”

“For _fuck’s_ sake, Steve!” Peter storms up to his feet. The kid can’t stop tapping his fingers on his legs and he looks like he’s about to cry. Steve wants to take back everything he’s said and just go have sex in the department store, but he stays silent. He watches as the brunet paces. He watches the fire and the fact that there are no stars. “Fuck you. _Fuck_ _you_ , you goddamn piece of _shit_. I know, alright? I _know_. I knew from the start!”

“The hell d’you mean.”

“The reason there’s no stars? The sky’s black? Time doesn’t exist? Space? I knew from the start, Steve, that you’d pick the other place. You have to make decisions to see the outcome. You can’t see the stars or the sun—not here, at least—until you commit to it. Not that it matters, because you’ll pick that other place. And this place will not exist.”

Silence. “So, you won’t exist if I pick the other place?”

“Yeah.”

“But I thought you were real.”

“I _am_ real. And even if you pick that other place, I’ll _still_ be real. I just won’t exist, because existence is a flat sort of thing. Existence is living on a plane—your plane, in this case—and even if I exist elsewhere, on another plane, it won’t be on _your_ plane. I won’t exist for _you_ —therefore, I won’t exist.”

“How can you exist yet _not_ exist?”

“You have to _choose_ , Steve.”

Steve stands up to stretch his legs and Peter looks up, alarmed, afraid that the man might leave. And said man might have, since nothing makes sense and it would be so much easier to just ride away.

“You’ll forget this place,” Peter says quickly, standing up as the blond walked over to his dented bike. Steve hauls it back to the road, his stiff back to Peter and the fire. He could just drive away—he has his bike and the keys and no one is stopping him. He could. “And since this, right now, is just you and me, if you forget, you’ll forget me. It’ll be as if I don’t exist, because only you know me.”

“You don’t know I’ll forget you.”

“I do. And I’ll tell you how it goes: it’ll all be like a dream, but a dream you can’t remember. And then it won’t be a dream because you don’t remember the dream. That’s why, when you pick the other place, I won’t exist. Not because I don’t exist, but because I don’t exist for _you_ , who is the only person who knows me, for now. People exist through the memory of others, Steve, but reality doesn’t need memory to function.”

“Can you stop with the ‘when you pick the other place’ bullshit? It’s not like that. You don’t _know_ that, even if you know all this other crap.”

“But I _do_ , Steve. I _do_ know. You think you’re the first one to know me? To forget me?”

He whirls around, a burst of hot jealousy surging through his blood, “Shouldn’t you want me to stay here? Shouldn’t you be convincing me? I’m not the first, huh? So you’ll just move on to another guy, who’ll forget you, too. And I’m just wasting my time here, because you _know_ I’ll pick the other place, and you _know_ I’ll leave. This whole thing— _you_ —are a waste of time. Is that it?”

Peter looks stricken and Steve turns his back on him again. “I…yeah. Yes, I guess you’re right,” Steve can feel eyes boring into the back of his head and he is, as if struck by lightning, abruptly very afraid that if he turns, he might not feel those eyes on him. That if he turns, Peter would not be there and it would just be him and the fire and the nightless sky, “I thought this was what you wanted. I thought you didn’t want anything to matter.”

Steve turns. “Peter—“

But there’s no one there.

* * *

“How’s your arm?” Buck asks, sitting awkwardly in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs the hospital keeps folded on the side. His shoulders look to big, his hair too long and dark, but his face is familiar and Steve is grateful despite the cold disconnection he feels. “You’ve been sleeping a lot. I got worried, you know, that you might be in a coma.”

Steve laughs, and he’s not awake enough to tell if it’s forced or not, and replies, “Me? Coma? Never. Who’d keep you out of all the fights you’ve been in?”

“Hey, you can’t blame me, you tosser,” Buck reaches over and nudges the side of his head good-naturedly. “You know how you used to get sick all the time…you used to spend a lot of time in hospitals. And, you know. I worry.”

“Oh, _Buck_ ,” he sighs, shaking his head and smiling softly. It was sweet. He had to blink a couple times to get his eyes to focus. “Hey, mind if you shut the lights off? The room’s too bright.”

“The lights are already off, Steve.”

“Oh, my bad. I must have slept too long.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” the man asks, his sharp eyes softened with worry. “The doctors say it, too, you know. You’re sleeping a lot for someone without a concussion. Or so they say. You got a bird you’re dreaming about?”

Steve laughs again, since there’s nothing else to do, “Very funny, Buck. I can’t even remember falling asleep—Christ, the sun is bright. Was it always like this?” Everything was harsh and white, like liquid bleach burning into his eyes.

“Close your eyes, Stevey. Maybe the reflection is getting to you.”

They flutter shut and the darkness is a comfort. The room is quiet, though he can feel Bucky’s eyes fix upon him, and he says on a whim, “You know, I wish I could get away from everything. I wish there was a pause button to life.”

“That why you left?” his friend’s voice asks, quickly, as if he’d been prepared to bring it up himself.

“Yeah, that’s why I left.”

“You’re a fucking moron.”

“I can’t help it—must be in my blood or something,” he pauses, wondering what he should say next, but the black comfort wrapped over his eyes urges him on, “It was the most wonderful feeling, Buck. I was just driving and all I had to do was follow a highway. I couldn’t see anything, but I had a feeling I was leaving everything behind and it was the greatest thing I’d ever experienced.”

“Christ,” he hears a tired sigh and he feels bad for saying anything at all, “Alright. So you ride your motorcycle like the idiot you are, graze a truck, mess up your arm, and _that_ … _that_ is the greatest experience you’ve ever had?”

“No, I met—“ Steve pauses. “I nearly ran over—“

“Oh, _that_ makes it everything better. You graze a truck, mess up your arm, and nearly _kill_ someone. Christ, Stevey. Christ. If you wanted space, you could have come to me—or any one of us.”

“I met someone, Buck. I met someone, I’m sure of it, but I don’t remember—“ he racks his brain for a memory he isn’t sure he possesses, “I swear.”

“That’s fine,” the brunet says, patting him on the shoulder. “It’s not like you’ll see him again, anyway. Let’s just go home.”

‘No, I remember someone,’ he wanted to say. ‘I remember I met someone on the side of the highway I was on. Someone jumped out from the side and waved his arms like a maniac, I _remember_ —‘

“Come on. Let’s just go,” Bucky is pushing neatly folded clothes into Steve’s limp arms. “Let’s go home, Steve. We miss you.” Steve takes it.

He’s changing while Bucky has his back turned to him, more as a respect than a necessity, really. The hospital tiles are too white and the tears that stream down his face are either from the stinging of his pupils or from the ache in his chest.

They’re walking through the narrow hallways of the hospital—or rather, Bucky is leading him out—until his shoulder jerks back. Someone had bumped into him, in his dazed state of mind.

“Oh, sorry about that,” Steve murmurs, not really paying attention to anything above a foot tall. Suddenly, there’s a flash of something dark as the person he walked into brushes past him politely, and he nearly ignores it before his voice is tugged his mouth. “Wait.”

The figure turns hurriedly, “Yes?” He has peppery-blond hair and blue eyes and a silver nametag clipped to his breast pocket—

* * *

“ _Peter_.”


End file.
